Quality, Not Quantity

Buy the ticket. Take the ride. - Hunter S. Thompson

[smartpeopleposting]

There will always be a reason why you meet people. Either you need them to change your life or you’re the one that will change theirs.

Madeline Sheehan

[whateveramusesme]

The Flight of Apollo-Soyuz: 40th Anniversary

The Apollo-Soyuz mission began at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Soyuz 19 launched July 15, 1975, at 8:20 a.m. EDT, carrying cosmonauts Alexey Leonov and Valery Kubasov. Hours later, Apollo followed, lifting off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 3:50 p.m. On board were astronauts Thomas Stafford, Vance Brand and Donald Slayton. Both the Soyuz and Apollo vehicles made orbital adjustments during the following two days, bringing both into a circular, 229-kilometer orbit. Hard-dock was achieved July 17 at 12:12 p.m. as the two craft soared above the Atlantic Ocean. A global audience watched on television as the historic event unfolded. Hatches between the vehicles were opened at 3:17 p.m. and the two space crews warmly greeted each other, officially beginning joint activities. The astronauts and cosmonauts took congratulatory calls from Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and U.S. President Gerald Ford, exchanged commemorative gifts and shared a meal before closing the hatch for the day.

Information courtesy of NASA

[whateveramusesme]

New Image of Pluto: 'Houston, We Have Geology'

As the newest black and white image from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) appeared on the morning of July 10, members of the science team reacted with joy and delight, seeing Pluto as never before.

“Among the structures tentatively identified in this new image are what appear to be polygonal features; a complex band of terrain stretching east-northeast across the planet, approximately 1,000 miles long; and a complex region where bright terrains meet the dark terrains of the whale,” said New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern. “After nine and a half years in flight, Pluto is well worth the wait.”

[whateveramusesme]

The Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) is engaged in comprehensive long lead-time research fundamental to NOAA's mission.  Scientists at GFDL develop and use mathematical models and computer simulations to improve our understanding and prediction of the behavior of the atmosphere, the oceans, and climate.   GFDL scientists focus on model-building relevant for society, such as hurricane research, prediction, and seasonal forecasting, and understanding global and regional climate change.

[whateveramusesme]

NASA | Arching Eruption  

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory caught this image of an eruption on the side of the sun on June 18, 2015. The eruption ultimately escaped the sun, growing into a substantial coronal mass ejection, or CME — a giant cloud of solar material traveling through space. This imagery is shown in the 304 Angstrom wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light, a wavelength that highlights material in the low parts of the sun’s atmosphere and that is typically colorized in red. The video clip covers about four hours of the event.

[whateveramusesme]

Dame Ellen MacArthur: The surprising thing I learned sailing solo around the world  

What do you learn when you sail around the world on your own? When solo sailor Ellen MacArthur circled the globe – carrying everything she needed with her – she came back with new insight into the way the world works, as a place of interlocking cycles and finite resources, where the decisions we make today affect what's left for tomorrow. She proposes a bold new way to see the world's economic systems: not as linear, but as circular, where everything comes around.

[tibor-1]

Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.

Robert Browning (via tibor-1)

I posted this some time ago. My friend Steve Slater shared with me “A HANDBOOK ON THE RARE, THREATENED & ENDEMIC SPECIES OF THE GREATER ST LUCIA WETLAND PARK”, from which I took this quote ;)

[whateveramusesme]

Hubble Space Telescope-25th Anniversary Resource Reel

On April 24, 1990, the space shuttle Discovery lifted off on space shuttle mission STS-31, with the Hubble Space Telescope in its payload bay. The following day, Hubble was released into space, ready to peer into the vast unknown. Unfortunately, it was discovered that the observatory's primary mirror had a flaw that affected the clarity of the telescope's early images. Over the next three years corrective optics were developed for the telescope and in December 1993, astronauts repaired Hubble’s “vision” during space shuttle mission STS-61, the first of NASA’s five servicing missions to the orbiting observatory. Subsequent repairs and upgrades were also made on servicing missions in February 1997 (STS-82); December 1999 (STS-103); March 2002 (STS-109); and May 2009 (STS-125). The Hubble Space Telescope has provided scientists and the public with spectacular images of deep space. One of the most technologically advanced pieces of equipment that humans have put into orbit, it has helped researchers make important discoveries about our universe, ranging from planets and stars to galaxies and cosmology, in the process reinvigorating and reshaping our perception of the cosmos and giving astronomers insight into the history and fate of our universe.

[whateveramusesme]

Water in the Universe

This panel discussion from NASA headquarters focuses on recent discoveries of water and organics in our solar system, the role our sun plays in water-loss in neighboring planets, and our search for habitable worlds among the stars.

[whateveramusesme]

I was born not knowing, and have only had a little time to change that here and there.

Richard Feynman

[whateveramusesme]

Fossil Extraction from Castle River

Researchers at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology say the ancient remains appear to be from a new species of hadrosaur, a duck-billed, plant-eating class of dinosaur characterized by an abnormally-shaped, elongated skull.

"This specimen is coming from a place where we haven't had dinosaurs before," Donald Henderson, the museum's curator of dinosaurs, says in the video. "This will be a significant specimen. We're going to learn a lot from it."

[whateveramusesme]

Highway of Heroes - The Trews song as the background

King's Highway 401, also known by its official name as the Macdonald–Cartier Freeway and colloquially as the four-oh-one, is a 400-series highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. It stretches 817.9 kilometers (508.2 mi) from Windsor to the Quebec border. The part of Highway 401 that passes through Toronto is the busiest highway in the world, and one of the widest.

On August 24, 2007, the portion of the highway between Glen Miller Road in Trenton and the Don Valley Parkway / Highway 404 Junction in Toronto was designated the Highway of Heroes, as the road is traveled by funeral convoys for fallen Canadian Forces personnel from CFB Trenton to the coroner's office in Toronto. On September 27, 2013, the Highway of Heroes designation was extended west to Keele Street in Toronto, to coincide with the move of the coroner's office to the new Forensic Services and Coroner’s Complex at the Humber River Hospital.

[whateveramusesme]

Monarchs & Milkweed - Yosemite Nature Notes

Take a microcosmic safari through a field of milkweed and discover a whole world of life, from bees to wasps to hummingbirds to butterflies. The charismatic Monarch butterfly is completely dependent on milkweed for its survival, and places like Yosemite National Park offer protection for this often overlooked plant.

[whateveramusesme]

The "first man-made biological leaf" could enable humans to colonize space

RCA graduate Julian Melchiorri says the synthetic biological leaf he developed, which absorbs water and carbon dioxide to produce oxygen just like a plant, could enable long-distance space travel.

[whateveramusesme]

Preserving Lonesome George

Museum scientists and a master taxidermist describe the painstaking process—part art, part science--of preserving Lonesome George, the famous Pinta Island tortoise who died in 2012 in the Galapagos Islands. As the last known survivor of the tortoise species Chelonoidis abingdoni, Lonesome George served as a global icon of conservation—and a reminder of the urgent need to address ever-increasing extinctions. After a limited time on view at the Museum Lonesome George returns to Ecuador as part of that nation’s patrimony.

[smartpeopleposting]

A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.

Nelson Mandela (via smartpeopleposting)

[whateveramusesme]

Sunrise over Llanganuco Valley © 2013 Eric Hodges

Taken from around 5100m (16,732 ft.) on Yanapaccha. Peaks are, from left to right: Chopicalqui, Huascaran South, Huascaran North, Huandoys (4 peaks). Cordillera Blanca Peru, August 2013.